Is authentic leadership effective in promoting diversity in Japan?

Promoting diversity in business organizations requires a focus on cognitive diversity, which is the differences in individuals’ invisible attributes, such as knowledge, skills, perspectives, and values, rather than demographic diversity, such as age and nationality.

The information elaboration process fosters creativity and innovation because team members actively express, exchange, and discuss their diverse attributes and integrate them into a conclusion optimal for the team, thereby enhancing performance.

Cognitive diversity might negatively affect organizations with highly homogeneous social and cultural backgrounds; therefore, authentic leadership is gaining traction to be effective for team processes.

This leadership style is defined as the behavior pattern of leaders who strive for optimal outcomes based on the team’s specific situations and contexts while valuing their authenticity and pursuing personal development.

The findings of a study published in Frontiers in Psychology indicate that cognitive diversity negatively impacts information elaboration in highly homogeneous Japanese business organizations. However, authentic leadership positively impacts this process, regardless of social and cultural contexts.

The results indicate a potential course of action for business organizations to promote diversity. This study is anticipated to be the starting point of future intervention studies to provide more concrete methods of promoting behavioral change.